Setting the Tone

The date is November 24th, 2015 and a borderline top 10 team in the world has just got done adding two new players to their roster. Initially--to the majority of the world--this move seemed like a complete gamble by the Brazilians at SK; no one had even the slightest of an inkling that this seemingly inconsequential move would come to shake the foundations of the history books of Counter Strike itself.

SK began their journey by leaving their mark on the international scene upon reaching the finals of Dreamhack winter and then continued their string of success by constantly making deep runs into tournaments comprised of stacked fields.

Despite all this, for a while, to the general public, it seemed that SK had found themselves stuck in a prisoners dilemma: seemingly good enough to make it deep into tournaments but also seemingly stuck with the misfortune of being in the same era as a team like Fnatic in the midst of a ridiculous streak. SK for the first six months of their lifespan found themselves unable to grasp any titles, and with Guardian and Olofmeister still standing in their way, it seemed that perhaps the window of opportunity for said titles would be just as tight in the future.

However, eventually misfortune struck and the tides of the scene changed; Olofmeister and Guardian found themselves sinking with injuries and SK took the opportunity to rise up and fill the hole that had opened up at the top of the scene.

Switching into a new gear and finding a level of play that they had not ever touched before helped ensure that SK managed to string together a period in competitive Counter Strike history which only few other teams in history have even come close to parallelling.

The Competition to be the Best

SK have not only established themselves as the best team in the world but also have put their own vintage stamp upon this time period to mark it as the SK time period. After all, post MLG Columbus, barring a fluke performance at Dreamhack Malmo, SK have won every tournament they attended except for one, and at that tournament ECS they managed to reach the finals.

Now the fight for SK no longer lies solely within this time period; after all, this team could disband this very day and still go down in the pantheon of Counter Strike gods.

No, rather the fight for SK lies with teams from eras past, a fight in order to define the legacy of their team and how they will come to measure up alongside other historically great teams when the book of Counter Strike is finally all well and done.

All these accomplishments have led SK as a team to formulate a resume that not many other teams in history can contend with. When thinking of teams whose results put them in the same general ballpark as this SK roster then only two real contenders pop up, the pronax era Fnatic roster and the original historic 87-0 Ninja’s in Pyjamas roster.

Be that as it may, this SK team, with their extremely impressive win at ESL One Cologne 2016, have begun to place themselves in a position to potentially overtake these teams in the record books of CS. They have embarked on a streak which only those two legendary Swedish teams can come to rival, and SK have yet to finish.

Where to Now

If one were to sit back and take a cold and long objective look at the state of the Counter Strike scene today, then it should become clear to the casual observer that there are no real teams at the elite level who are positioned to overtake SK at the top level of competition. While teams like G2 and Virtus Pro are in positions where if they hit the right form then they could push SK to the brink or perhaps even beat them, no team exists in their current state that have the ability to consistently go to Counter Strike tournaments and challenge for the throne.

Take a look solely at the history of SK’s current Brazilian CS team to date and it becomes clear that they will end up going down as one of the greatest teams of all time. However the question that exists in people's minds now is “exactly how far up the ladder can this team go?” Can this team eventually become the greatest Counter Strike Global Offensive team of all time?

This journey of SK’s is no longer solely about rivalries with present day teams, rather it has transcended itself and transmuted itself into an epic on par with the Greek tales of old. The Counter Strike scene is in position to witness a legend attempting to reach heights that have not been reached in the years past. Whether SK will eventually reach the sun or they will fall just as Icarus did so long ago is a tale unto of itself, rather the story that the scene be focusing on is the tale of latest team to rise up and not only line up alongside the pantheon of Counter Strike gods but also attempt to overthrow them.

Follow the author at @jwong2903.

Photos courtesy of HLTV.